On the etymology of Rus. bezmen ‘steelyard balance, weigher’

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Abstract

Udmurt bezmen ‘steelyard balance, weigher’ may be a borrowing from Russian bezmen ‘steelyard balance’ or from Tatar bizmän ‘id.’. Tatar, Bashkir bizmän have parallels only in the Karachay-Balkar and Kumyk languages (bazman ‘steelyard balance’ with back vocalism). Previously proposed etymologies for Tat., Bash. bizmän and Russian bezmen (from Persian *vaznān ‘weights’ < Arabic wazn ‘weight’, from Arabic mīzān ‘weigher’, from Bulgarian *viśmen ‘weigher’ < Chuvash viś ‘to weigh’) meet serious objections and cannot be accepted. Rus. bezmen is known since the turn of the XII–XIII centuries, and its old meaning ‘a weight measure’ allows one to compare it with the word known almost in all Turkic languages of Central Asia, in Karluk, Oguz and Kipchak: batman ‘weight measure (different for different goods)’ (from the XVIth century also known in Russian). In addition, for the Turkic languages one can reconstruct *basman / *bäśmän ‘weight measure’, preserved only in Chuvash pasman(a) ‘id.’ (and possibly in Kumyk and Karachay-Balkar bazman) and also borrowed into Russian. Turk. *basman / *bäśmän could be the source (via Volga-Bulgarian) for Rus. bezmen (which, as suggested in etymological dictionaries, has been reinterpreted according to folk etymology as bezmen). The origin of the Turkic doublet batman ~ *basman / *bäśmän is due to the role of the Iranian languages in international trade in the early Middle Ages in Central Asia: batman was borrowed from Sogdian p’tm’n ‘measure’ (< *pati-mān ‘(co-)measurement’) in the zone of influence of the Sogdian language, and basman / *bäśmän come from the Khwaresmian p’cm’n ‘measure’ (with palatalization *ti > c) in the zone of influence of the Khwaresmian language, in the Volga region.

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Vladimir V. Napolskikh

Institute of History and Archaeology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Ural Federal University

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Email: vovia.nap@ya.ru
Russian Federation, Ekaterinburg; Ekaterinburg

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